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Perceiving an entity to have a mind deems that entity human, and thus worthy of moral care. Yet mind perception is highly variable, resulting in humanization of nonhumans and dehumanization of people, with opposing moral consequences. I will describe these processes to highlight the importance of recognizing minds in others.

Adam Waytz, PhD, is a psychologist and an associate professor of management and organizations in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (IL). He uses methods from social psychology and neuroscience to research topics such as altruism, dehumanization, anthropomorphism, whistleblowing, trust, and moral responsibility. He has numerous research articles in leading journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Psychological Review and has written popular articles for outlets including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, and Slate. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Columbia University (NY), a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Chicago (IL), and received a National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Health to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University (MA). He is the first person to receive twice the Theoretical Innovation Prize from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. In 2014, Poets and Quants named him one of the Best 40 Business School Professors Under the Age of 40 and in 2015 he won the early career award from the International Social Cognition Network as well as the SAGE Foundation Young Scholar Award.